TBEX Europe 2015: Commerce Track Sessions

Today we’re pleased to share the details of the Commerce Track at TBEX Europe 2015. We think you’ll be as excited with the line up as we are. And, just in case you missed it, you’ll find information about the Content Track and the Community Track as well. Details on the full schedule is here.

Here are some great choices in the Commerce Track:

Moving From Press Trip to Paid Campaign

Description: The session is aimed at bloggers who want to leverage an established blog to win more paid work as part of individual or group campaigns, taking bloggers beyond the unpaid press trip to think in terms of campaigns generating results that DMOs and travel businesses are prepared to pay for. The presentation will include case studies of successful paid travel blog campaigns and projects.

Takeaways: The foundations that need to be laid so that you can offer something clients are willing to pay for. The mind-shift you need to make when considering what a potential client is prepared to pay for. The elements that are common to most successful paid blog campaigns. Ideas and inspiration from other bloggers who are already involved in paid blog campaigns and projects. Some first steps you can take as a blogger in order to start working on paid campaigns.

Skill level: Intermediate. You should have solid experience blogging and have a good track record of press trip participation. You should have also have experience pitching for editorial trips.

Creating a Tour Business from Your Blog

Description: One often overlooked form of revenue is to launch a traditional business from a successful website (instead of the other way around). For those travelers who have a home base and are looking to capitalize on the audience and experience they have built, opening a tour business in their niche can prove to be highly successful.

Takeaways: Understanding the process of identifying and pinpointing tour opportunities within your market. The reality of creating a tour business, without losing the number one asset to your new business – your blog! Tangible next steps to launch your own tour business from your blog.

Skill Level: Advanced. This is a niche session for experienced bloggers interested in starting a tour business that complements their blog.

From the Pitch to the Relationship: How to Work with Brands

Description: You’ve built your blog, honed your writing, photography and video skills; you have a large number of highly engaged readers; and you’ve built a strong social following in your niche. You’ve worked with brands on sponsored content and other campaigns with some success. Now you’re ready to take your brand collaboration strategy to the next level. Where do you go from here? How do you make sure you’re the blogger top brands want to work with?

Takeaways: How to evaluate your blog and set goals for your brand sponsorships. The many ways bloggers can work with brands – how to find the brand that best fits you. How to craft a pitch and media kit – and how to create different pitches for different situations. What numbers and info to include – how to present your best self to a brand. How to negotiate for what you’re worth, how to create a custom campaign a brand will love. The art of following up – with examples of what info to include.

Skill Level: Intermediate. You should have an established blog and audience.

Leveraging Your Brand Beyond the Blog

Description: Building up a successful blog is important in terms of making travel blogging work as a career choice. But for a long-term, sustainable business, that means getting beyond the blog and looking to leveraging your value in other areas. This session includes two bloggers who have built businesses in a variety of ways, and will discuss the most strategic decisions, branding choices, and negotiating tactics for leveraging your blog and brand to think big.

Takeaways: Reevaluating brand voice and targeted users against your business goals using a brand questionnaire. Offering value to brands in unique ways that go beyond sponsored posts and text links. Understanding your brand community’s needs in order to create a product or service that appeals to them. Books, tours, and other ancillary materials for a travel blogging brand.

Skill Level: Advanced. This session is for bloggers with an established blog and audience, with experience at monetization, who are looking for streategy tweaks to improve their exisiting business.

Managing your time and deliverables on blog trips so that you WOW the client

Description: You’ve made the pitch and secured the trip. However the logistics of blogging while on a trip can be tough to manage – photography, note-taking, videos, sharing on social media, expenses, and keeping your other business balls in the air – all while trying to see everything. Trips are packed full of activities so much so that it’s hard to manage your time so that you can actually do the work and see the destination in a short time. This session will provide you tips on how to manage your time and deliverables so that you’ll have a satisfied client.

Skill Level: Advanced. This is for the blogger who is already successfully pitching campaigns and is looking for time management skills and tips in the implementation of their campaigns. NOTE: This will not cover pitching or general working with brands.

WordPress for Travel Bloggers: Understanding The World’s Most Popular Content Management System

Description: WordPress has been around for over a decade. It powers nearly 30% of the web, and chances are more than half that a new site will be built on it (2 out of every 3, actually). Still, WordPress is a software platform; it requires a little bit of know-how that, once understood, will allow you to do amazing things online. This session will go over the nuts and bolts of WordPress. Themes, plugins, easy-to-understand code snippets, and tutorials to help you make your WordPress site unique and amazing.

Takeaways: Ways to maximize WordPress and how to get the most out of your blog. The most useful – and sometimes underrated – plugins and themes you can use to get the most out of your site. An in-depth Q&A where you can ask Mitch your most daunting WordPress questions.

Skill Level: Basic. You do not need to be a code jockey, or even an experienced WP user to understand the discussion in this session.